Valeriepieris Circles Reveal City and Regional Boundaries in England and Wales

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel boundary detection method using Valeriepieris circles to analyze spatial data in England and Wales, revealing natural regional and city boundaries based on population, economic, and transport data.

Contribution

The paper presents a new approach for identifying regional boundaries through Valeriepieris circles, providing a simple yet effective model for complex spatial data analysis.

Findings

Confirmed known social and economic disparities in England and Wales.

Provided new insights into city development and dynamics from different data perspectives.

Demonstrated the method's ability to reveal natural boundaries in diverse datasets.

Abstract

We propose a new method of determining regional and city boundaries based on the Valeriepieris circle, the smallest circle containing a given fraction of the data. By varying the fraction in the circle we can map complex spatial data to a simple model of concentric rings which we then fit to determine natural density cutoffs. We apply this method to population, occupation, economic and transport data from England and Wales, finding that the regions determined by this method affirm well known social facts such as the disproportionate wealth of London or the relative isolation of the North East and South West of England. We then show how different data sets give us different views of the same cities, providing insight into their development and dynamics.